_Mesopithecus_, Wagner, Abh. K. Bayer, Ak. (1) iii., p. 154; vii., abth.,
ii., p. 9; Zittel, Handb. Palæont., iv., p. 706 (1893).
This genus is based on a skull and teeth, which indicate an alliance with
_Semnopithecus_, while the skeleton more resembles that of _Macacus Inuus_
(the Barbary Ape). The male had much longer and more powerful canines than
the female. MESOPITHECUS PENTELICI, Wagner, the typical species, was
founded on a fragment originally brought by a soldier in 1838 from Pikermi
to Munich. Since then the whole skeleton has been recovered, and this is
now one of the best-known species of the fossil _Anthropoidea_. It lived in
Pliocene times, apparently in troops in the forests of the Pikermi plains,
which at that date extended far into what is now the Mediterranean Sea.
Remains of the same species have been discovered near Baltavar, in Hungary.
GENUS COLOBUS (_suprà_, p. 85).
In the Mid-Miocene forests of Europe this genus was represented by a
species described by Professor Fraas as COLOBUS GRANDÆVUS, from Steinheim,
in Würtemburg.
{215}GENUS SEMNOPITHECUS (_suprà_, p. 100).
Among the forests in which bamboos, liquidambars, tulip-trees, magnolias,
laurels, and pomegranates flourished in Upper Pliocene days, in the middle
of Europe, there lived troops of Langurs, closely allied to those of our
own time. SEMNOPITHECUS MONSPESSULANUS, Gervais, has been recovered from
the strata of that age, at Montpellier, and near Casino in Tuscany. S.
PALÆINDICUS (Lydekker) inhabited the forests in the region where the
Sivalik hills now rise at the foot of the Himalayas, while S. ENTELLUS
roamed over that region in the Pleistocene age, as its actual descendants
do to-day.
FAMILY SIMIIDÆ (_suprà_, p. 143).